.KEYWORD keyboard
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE The Palm m500 Series Mini Keyboard has pros and cons
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Contributing Editor Stephen Vance has long been pining away for a Palm m500 Series Mini Keyboard. He’s finally got one, and you can learn all about its pros and cons in this review of the cool little data input device.
.AUTHOR Stephen Vance
I’ll admit it. I’m an input junkie. For my Palm handheld, that means that I frequently try new Graffiti methods and keyboards. When I saw the Mini Keyboard come out for the Palm i705, I started longing for its availability for my Palm m505. It finally became available (at http://www.palm.com/products/accessories/mini_keyboard/index.html) earlier this summer and is shown in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A The Palm m500 Series Mini Keyboard is small, light, and well built.
I’ve looked at the other clip-on keyboards and never bought. Of the ones I’ve seen, they either cover the silkscreen area with no compensatory functionality or they hang off the universal connector using flimsy clips. So when the Mini Keyboard was released, I had to have one, even though a shortage of evaluation units forced me to buy it myself.
.H1 Pros
At $59.95 it seems pricey for its small size and weight. However, it’s well constructed and designed and is significantly cheaper than the functionally similar Portable Keyboard. It slides snugly over the bottom of the handheld, covering the application buttons and silkscreen area, as shown in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B The Mini Keyboard fits snugly over the bottom of the Palm handheld.
The fit is so snug, in fact, that it sometimes depresses the application buttons during insertion.
The keyboard compensates for the keys and screen area it covers by supplying replacements for each of the occluded buttons. The only functionality unavailable are, obviously, Graffiti, the quick launch clock, and for the m500, the contrast setting. The additional keys include the application buttons, the scroll buttons, the silkscreen buttons, and a shortcut to the international keyboard. Unfortunately, you still need to use the stylus to enter international characters. As an additional convenience, a power button is included so that you don’t have to remove your hands from the keyboard.
The keys are small but highly functional. Even with my rather large fingers, I have very low error rates entering text. The keys have very solid response allowing you to know that key presses have taken effect without watching the screen. Most punctuation symbols are available as shift characters, including the "@" symbol.
Shortcuts are also available for commonly used buttons. Key equivalents for New, Done, and OK are easily available, making many functions navigable through the keyboard. In particular, Memo Pad entries are extremely easy for note taking during meetings.
.H1 Cons
One family of applications is not well assisted by the Mini Keyboard. Network applications such as instant messaging or Web browsing cannot be used in online modes because the keyboard dominates the universal connector port. With the i705 for which it was originally released, the network connection is built into the handheld. However, for the m500 series, only the Bluetooth card currently allows network connections without the universal connector. Ideally, a connector pass-through would help, if it were feasible.
You’ll also find that the cases you’ve been using no longer accommodate the device with the keyboard attached. The keyboard comes with a carrying pouch, but you have to choose between an extra item to carry and the things you normally carry in your case.
.H1 An annoying bug
The above points are minor, but I did encounter what I consider to be a significant bug in the device and its driver. When turning off the power with the keyboard attached, the handheld goes through a series of power states (off-dim-off-dim-on) that result in a continuous power drain. The cycling only stops when the keyboard is removed from the unit, detracting from the keyboard’s convenience. Updating the driver to version 1.02 from Palm’s support site (at http://www.palm.com/support/downloads/minikey.html) didn’t solve the problem.
Trying to work through the problem with Palm Technical Support was even more frustrating. Email support only suggested remedies that any experienced user would have already tried, such as re-installing the driver after a complete uninstall. They recommended calling phone support. This has been my general experience with Palm’s email support recently.
Phone support was even worse. After painfully convincing the technician that yes, the m505 (or any color Palm handhelds for that matter) does have a backlight and yes, the driver update on the Web site addressed a similar issue in the i705 but could be installed in the m505, I was told that I should try re-installing the driver after doing a hard reset on the device. If that worked, I would have to figure out the cause myself. My only other alternative is to return the unit. In the end, I was not even convinced that my request to file a bug report had been acted upon.
Unfortunately, this is characteristic of my experiences over the last several months of a downward trend in the quality and usefulness of Palm’s technical support. I find this a sad decline from a company whose technical support I used to hold as exemplary.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the Palm m500 Series Mini Keyboard, visit http://www.palm.com/products/accessories/mini_keyboard/index.html.
For the updated driver for the Mini Keyboard, visit http://www.palm.com/support/downloads/minikey.html.
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
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